The Boreal Forest
Our Boreal forest team maintained a high profile. Theyconvinced
a number of companies to help protect forests that have ahigh
conservation value by moving to buy products certified to theForest
Stewardship Council (FSC) standard. The best example was RONAwhich
took significant strides to
developthe strongest forest products procurement policy in North
America.
In June, the Grassy Narrows First Nation won a decade-longfight
to protect its traditional area when AbitibiBowater announced
itwould
stoplogging in the one million hectare Whiskey Jack Forest,
nearKenora. Greenpeace and other environmental groups supported the
FirstNation in its struggle.
Greenpeace released two scientifically significant reports:
Finally, Greenpeace and other environmental groups were ableto
celebrate a victory when the Ontario government promised to
protectat least 22.5 million hectares of intact Boreal Forest in
the far northof the province. The courageous campaigns of First
Nations communitieswere also instrumental in this victory. The
promise by Ontariorepresents the single largest conservation
commitment in Canadianhistory.
The Great Bear Rainforest
Greenpeace continued working to ensure that the March 31, 2009
deadline to protect the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia
is met by the Provincial government. We launched a
Keep the Promise campaign to encourage Premier Campbell to keep
his promise and to remind him that the world is watching. We also
celebrated the Haida Nation's accomplishment -- successful
negotiation of an
agreement with the province of B.C. that extends protection of the
Great Bear Rainforest to an additional 254,000 hectares,
doubling the protected area on Haida Gwaii.
Greenpeace successfully worked with three logging companies to
have them voluntarily revise their plans, and ultimately commit to
not log one million hectares of their tenures prior to March 31st
2009 to maintain important ecological values.
Three logging companies have undergone an assessment for Forest
Stewardship Council (FSC) certification covering a portion of their
logging tenures up to one million hectares.
Greenpeace and its partners created a spatially explicit plan
for maintaining over time the ecological integrity to the
rainforest.
And in the lead-up to the Games in Vancouver in 2010, Greenpeace
launched the website www.goodwoodwatch.ca to
track the use of
'good wood' in Olympic venues.
Global Warming
Greenpeace launched the KYOTOplus campaign, along with
otherenvironmental groups, to mobilize Canadians to demand real
action onglobal warming from the federal government.
Thousands of Canadians joined KYOTOplus in 2008 by signing
thepetition.
We went to the important United Nations Climate Change
Conference inPoznan, Poland in December with an outline for a
positive role forCanada in the talks.
Canada and other countries were supposed to use the Poznan
conferenceas a key milestone on the way to a stronger approach to
stopping globalwarming.
Unfortunately, Canada did not play a positive role. It
undermined theconference and set the process back.
Thanks to our efforts with international environmental groups,
theHarper government was identified as one of the main climate
villains inat the disappointing Poznan.
During the federal election campaign in October, we kept climate
changeon the agenda.
Greenpeace volunteers chased down candidates and got 490 to sign theKYOTOplus pledge for politicians.
Not one Conservativesigned. Theleaders of the other four parties
all signed.
Volunteers distributed tens of thousands of leaflets calling
onCanadians to vote for leadership on climate change. We were part
of the"anybody but Harper" movement. Staff and volunteers
bird-dogged theConservatives and Prime Minister Harper in
Vancouver, Edmonton,Toronto, Montreal and Quebec City.
In July, Greenpeace volunteers floated a huge balloon and banner
at themeeting of provincial premiers in Quebec City calling on them
tosupport KYOTOplus.
2009 will be a crucial year for KYOTOplus. The COUNTDOWN to COPENHAGENwill be in full swing. We
need to convince the federal government toplay a positive role in
the historic UN climate change meeting thatwill take place in
Copenhagen in December, 2009.
The world must decide to extend and strengthen the Kyoto
Protocol inCopenhagen.
The Tar Sands
The
Albertatar sands got a lot of our attention in 2008.
Theproduction of the
dirtyoil ofthe
tar sands is the largest industrialproject on the planet and
perhaps the biggest reason for Canada's poorshowing in Poznan. Oil
companies continued to spew millions of tonnesof greenhouse gases
into the atmosphere while systematically drainingAlberta rivers and
chewing through the Boreal Forest.
Greenpeace was there to bring attention to the destruction. We
droppedin on
PremierStelmach at his fundraising dinner last April in
Edmontonto remind him that his loyalties lie with Albertans not
oilcompanies.
In July, we went to Fort McMurray, the heart of the tar sands,
takingdirect action against tar sands giant Syncrude.
We put upa massivebanner that read "World's Dirtiest Oil" along the
bank of the sametailings pond where 500ducks died last spring
after landing in thetoxic sludge.
We took a humorous look at a serious situation with a spoof website, that
highlights the many tourist attractions of the
tarsands---fromblack-sand beaches to open-pit paragliding over
sour-gas updrafts.
No Nukes
Greenpeace kept the pressure on the McGuinty government to
shutdownthe Pickering "B"nuclear stationwhen it reaches the end
of its operational life in 2014 instead ofspending billions to
rebuild.
Our 30km.ca campaignshowed the
danger millions of people in theToronto area face with the
operation of the Pickering nuclear stationso close to an urban
centre. Greenpeace activists
playedout a disasterscenario of a nuclear meltdown.30km was the
evacuation radius for the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.
Research and science were the backbone of our work on our
nuclearcampaign. We released two reports:
Oceans
Last year, the Oceans campaign started strong with the re-launch
of the
sustainableseafoodcampaign targeting supermarkets that buy and
sell
Redlistfish, -speciesthat are not managed sustainably. Outof Stock: Supermarkets and theFuture
of Seafood--
released in June -- outlined the problem.
We organized a National Day of Action, complete with series of
directactions in Loblaw supermarketsacross the country. And in
Toronto, Greenpeace activists draped a giantnet over a Loblaw
store,with a banner that read "
Caughtred-handed selling Redlist fish".
Greenpeace volunteers supported the campaign in force outside
dozens ofsupermarkets across the country in the summer and the
fall. As a resultof their work, thousandsof Canadians signed our postcards which
wesent on to supermarkets to let them know people want them to
stopselling Redlist fish.
We continue to protect killer whales. We are participating in a
lawsuitagainst the Canadian government for its failure to
protectthese magnificent animals on the west coast.
We played a big role in the development of Greenpeace's report
onglobal aquaculture and promoted the report in Canada. It outlines
how
fishfarming is damaging marine and freshwater ecosystems.
Greenpeace Canada supported our colleagues in Japan, who were
arrestedfor exposing a stolen whale-meat scandal. These
braveactivists now face up to 10 years in jail. Our
ExecutiveDirector joined the global call for their release by
turninghimself into the Japanese embassy in Ottawa anddemanding
he be arrested as well for the so-called "crime" of defendingthe
whales.
Genetic Engineering
We fought in 2008 for mandatory labelling of genetically
engineered(GE) food in Canada. People have theright to know what they are eatingand the right
to chose not to eat genetically modified food.
Canada remains one of only two industrialized countries that
does notrequire mandatory labelling.
We supported a private members bill in Ottawa that would have
givenpeople the right to know which of our foods contain GE
ingredients. MPsvoted against the
bill156 to 101.
To prove to B.C.'s government that the
vastmajority of its residents - and infact, the vast majority
of Canadians - are in favour of labelling,Greenpeace delivered
petitions to the steps of the Legislature inVictoria.
We released a report entitled
DeadZones: How Agricultural Fertilizersare Killing our Rivers,
Lakes and Oceans, The reportdiscussed the appearance of toxic
dead zones across Canada caused byhazardous algae blooms, a problem
that has become global and is largelycaused by industrial
agriculture.
2009
To make 2009 a year of environmental successes, we need your
help.Donate, support our actions, volunteer with Greenpeace.